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"'High Levels' of Poison Found in Columbia Sewers as Probe Widens"

"Cancer-causing industrial chemicals have been found in the sewers at a Columbia-area restaurant as a state investigation of illegal dumping expands from the Upstate to the Midlands, where utility officials scrambled this week to learn more about the threat to central South Carolina."

"The concern is whether PCBs flowed from wastewater treatment plants into rivers or if sewage sludge with elevated PCB-levels was dumped in landfills or used to fertilize farm fields.

Banned more than three decades ago by the federal government, PCBs recently have been found in a string of Upstate wastewater treatment plants that discharge into rivers. The materials are considered probable human carcinogens if people are exposed in sufficient amounts. One source of PCBs is contaminated fish people eat from rivers, some of which"